very true—and as Hale asserts, lamentable—but Hale's volume
(the above criticism notwithstanding) does a splendid job of rem­edying
that lack.
NIELS INGWERSEN
U n i v e r s i t y o f W i s c o n s i n , M a d i s o n
Peter J. Rosendahl, H A N O L A O G H A N PER; A NORWEGIAN-A
M E R I C A N C O M I C STRIP. Edited by Joan N . Buckley and E i ­nar
Haugen. Oslo-Bergen-Stavanger-Tromsö: Universitetsförla­get,
and Northfield, M i n n . : The Norwegian-American Historical
Association, 1984, pp. 165.
Peter J. Rosendahl's popular comic strip H a n O l a og h a n Per
originally appeared in the Norwegian-language newspaper De¬
corah-Posten from 1918 to 1935 and has been reprinted numerous
times—in fact, despite the virtual demise of the immigrant press
in recent years, it still appears in a couple of newspapers today.
The strip is of interest to present-day readers for several reasons:
as an example of ethnic humor and a reflection of the problems of
assimilation faced by first and second-generation immigrants, and
as a marvelous illustration of "Spring Grove Norwegian" (the au­thor
spent virtually all his life in that Minnesota town, in the
heartland of Norwegian-American rural culture). Most of the time
it is also, quite simply, funny.
This new edition includes excellent introductory essays by the
editors, Joan Buckley and Einar Haugen, on "The Humor of H a n
O l a og h a n Per" and "The Language of H a n O l a og h a n Per"
respectively. In an effort to reach a wider audience, both in Nor­way
and among descendants of Norwegian immigrants who do
not speak the language, and for the benefit of the general reader
as well as historians interested in ethnicity or the development
of the comic strip, the volume is entirely bilingual. Not only do
the essays appear in both English and Norwegian on facing pages,
the strips themselves have been translated into English for the
American audience, and a vocabulary list of Norwegian-Ameri­can
or E n g l i s h terms that might be unfamiliar to Norwegians has
also been provided. The format and layout are pleasing to the eye,
with the translations and lists located directly underneath the snips
so as to be immediately accessible without interfering with ap­preciation
of the original.
Ola is the straight man of the comic pair, the sensible fellow
183
with both feet planted firmly on the ground, while Per clearly
belongs i n the familiar Scandinavian tradition of the f a n t a s t (or
the " f a l l guy" of gag and slapstick humor, as Joan Buckley points
out). Among Per's w i l d inventions are a never-ending series of
mechanical gadgets, intended as labor-saving devices, that inev­itably
malfunction, fall apart, or explode. Animals, too, prove re­calcitrant.
The strips feature repeated appearances of an evil-tem­pered
sow; a mule named Kate (often spelled phonetically, "Kæt")
who refused to be hitched up, let alone pull; her replacement, a
"guaranteed non-kicking mule" who is quite the opposite; the
bull Jupiter, who regards movement of any kind as an invitation
to charge; and an unnamed black cat that, despite being struck,
dragged around, and trod upon, continues to have a mind of its
own. The animals are especially troublesome for Per's brother
Lars, newly arrived from the O l d Country and unfamiliar both
with life in America in general and rural life in particular. Many
of the most amusing strips concern Lars' attempts to cope with
the unfamiliar—a situation easily recognized as typical of the
greenhorn—and the catastrophes that result. The women are less
individualized. Ola's wife Mari appears rarely; Per's rotund Polla,
from the big city of Fargo, North Dakota, has considerably less
difficulty than Lars in adjusting to life on the farm; and her mother,
"Værmor," is simply the stock mother-in-law of folk tradition.
Rosendahl makes skillful use of language as a means of char­acterization,
as Einar Haugen demonstrates. Ola speaks the high­land
Hallingdal dialect, Per and Polla the lowland dialect of
Hadeland (the two dialects dominant in Spring Grove), while the
educated Lars speaks standard Dano-Norwegian. Individuals
presumed to have had considerable exposure to English also dis­play
a liberal admixture of it in their speech, in accordance with
the principles of immigrant language acquisition that Haugen
himself was the first to formulate. Although the language differ­entiation
is always presented unobtrusively and no doubt seemed
self-evident to the original readers of the strip, to today's reader
it offers a goldmine of linguistic evidence of the acculturization
process.
Peter Rosendahl originally drew 599 separate strips in the H a n
O l a og h a n Per series. This collection unfortunately reprints only
the first 223. As the editors explain in their preface, "While it
would have been desirable to print all the strips, the economics
of publishing decided us to make a humbler start." The reader is
184
nevertheless assured that " a second volume could easily be added.
The material is ready." One can only hope that the publishers w i ll
see fit to make the complete series available to a new and larger
P U B L L C ' ROCHELLE WRIGHT
U n i v e r s i t y o f I l l i n o i s
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
N o r w e g i a n - A m e r i c a n S t u d i e s , Vol. 30 (Northfield, M i n n . :
Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1985, 340 pp.,
hardbound), edited by Odd S. Lovoll and dedicated to the memory
of Peter A. Munch, is devoted primarily to the history of the
Norwegians i n the Pacific Northwest, including Alaska.
* * *
N o r w e g i a n s t o A m e r i c a by E l i n Strøm and Wenche Herwig
(Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1985, 80 pp., softbound) is a popular
and attractively illustrated brief presentation of Norwegian emi­gration
and Norwegians in America. The first part, by E l i n Strøm,
consists of a fictionalized account of a representative emigrant
family who sailed for America in 1891 and eventually settled on
the North Dakota prairie. The second part, by Wenche Hervig, is
a factual survey of Norwegian-American history. The book is
available from Columbia University Press, 562 West 113th Street,
New York, N Y 10025, for $6.50.
* * *
Folke Hedblom discusses Swedish personal names in America
i n " S v e n k a personnamn i A m e r i k a . E n aktuel l forsknings­uppgift,"
in S t u d i a A n t h r o p o n y m i c a S c a n d i n a v i c a , / T i d s k r i f t för
n o r d i s k p e r s o n n a m n s f o r s k n i n g , 2 (1984), 87—105.
* * *
Swedish-American views on the O l d Country are discussed by
Harald Runblom in "Emigranten och fosterlandet. Svensk-amer­ikanernas
b i l d av Sverige," in A t t v a r a svensk, Kungl. Vitterhets,
Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Konferenser, 13 (Stockholm,
1985), 131-47.
* * *
A special bilingual number of B r y g g a n / T h e B r i d g e , published
by the Emigrant Register and Kinship Center in Karlstad, Swe-
185

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very true—and as Hale asserts, lamentable—but Hale's volume
(the above criticism notwithstanding) does a splendid job of rem­edying
that lack.
NIELS INGWERSEN
U n i v e r s i t y o f W i s c o n s i n , M a d i s o n
Peter J. Rosendahl, H A N O L A O G H A N PER; A NORWEGIAN-A
M E R I C A N C O M I C STRIP. Edited by Joan N . Buckley and E i ­nar
Haugen. Oslo-Bergen-Stavanger-Tromsö: Universitetsförla­get,
and Northfield, M i n n . : The Norwegian-American Historical
Association, 1984, pp. 165.
Peter J. Rosendahl's popular comic strip H a n O l a og h a n Per
originally appeared in the Norwegian-language newspaper De¬
corah-Posten from 1918 to 1935 and has been reprinted numerous
times—in fact, despite the virtual demise of the immigrant press
in recent years, it still appears in a couple of newspapers today.
The strip is of interest to present-day readers for several reasons:
as an example of ethnic humor and a reflection of the problems of
assimilation faced by first and second-generation immigrants, and
as a marvelous illustration of "Spring Grove Norwegian" (the au­thor
spent virtually all his life in that Minnesota town, in the
heartland of Norwegian-American rural culture). Most of the time
it is also, quite simply, funny.
This new edition includes excellent introductory essays by the
editors, Joan Buckley and Einar Haugen, on "The Humor of H a n
O l a og h a n Per" and "The Language of H a n O l a og h a n Per"
respectively. In an effort to reach a wider audience, both in Nor­way
and among descendants of Norwegian immigrants who do
not speak the language, and for the benefit of the general reader
as well as historians interested in ethnicity or the development
of the comic strip, the volume is entirely bilingual. Not only do
the essays appear in both English and Norwegian on facing pages,
the strips themselves have been translated into English for the
American audience, and a vocabulary list of Norwegian-Ameri­can
or E n g l i s h terms that might be unfamiliar to Norwegians has
also been provided. The format and layout are pleasing to the eye,
with the translations and lists located directly underneath the snips
so as to be immediately accessible without interfering with ap­preciation
of the original.
Ola is the straight man of the comic pair, the sensible fellow
183
with both feet planted firmly on the ground, while Per clearly
belongs i n the familiar Scandinavian tradition of the f a n t a s t (or
the " f a l l guy" of gag and slapstick humor, as Joan Buckley points
out). Among Per's w i l d inventions are a never-ending series of
mechanical gadgets, intended as labor-saving devices, that inev­itably
malfunction, fall apart, or explode. Animals, too, prove re­calcitrant.
The strips feature repeated appearances of an evil-tem­pered
sow; a mule named Kate (often spelled phonetically, "Kæt")
who refused to be hitched up, let alone pull; her replacement, a
"guaranteed non-kicking mule" who is quite the opposite; the
bull Jupiter, who regards movement of any kind as an invitation
to charge; and an unnamed black cat that, despite being struck,
dragged around, and trod upon, continues to have a mind of its
own. The animals are especially troublesome for Per's brother
Lars, newly arrived from the O l d Country and unfamiliar both
with life in America in general and rural life in particular. Many
of the most amusing strips concern Lars' attempts to cope with
the unfamiliar—a situation easily recognized as typical of the
greenhorn—and the catastrophes that result. The women are less
individualized. Ola's wife Mari appears rarely; Per's rotund Polla,
from the big city of Fargo, North Dakota, has considerably less
difficulty than Lars in adjusting to life on the farm; and her mother,
"Værmor," is simply the stock mother-in-law of folk tradition.
Rosendahl makes skillful use of language as a means of char­acterization,
as Einar Haugen demonstrates. Ola speaks the high­land
Hallingdal dialect, Per and Polla the lowland dialect of
Hadeland (the two dialects dominant in Spring Grove), while the
educated Lars speaks standard Dano-Norwegian. Individuals
presumed to have had considerable exposure to English also dis­play
a liberal admixture of it in their speech, in accordance with
the principles of immigrant language acquisition that Haugen
himself was the first to formulate. Although the language differ­entiation
is always presented unobtrusively and no doubt seemed
self-evident to the original readers of the strip, to today's reader
it offers a goldmine of linguistic evidence of the acculturization
process.
Peter Rosendahl originally drew 599 separate strips in the H a n
O l a og h a n Per series. This collection unfortunately reprints only
the first 223. As the editors explain in their preface, "While it
would have been desirable to print all the strips, the economics
of publishing decided us to make a humbler start." The reader is
184
nevertheless assured that " a second volume could easily be added.
The material is ready." One can only hope that the publishers w i ll
see fit to make the complete series available to a new and larger
P U B L L C ' ROCHELLE WRIGHT
U n i v e r s i t y o f I l l i n o i s
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
N o r w e g i a n - A m e r i c a n S t u d i e s , Vol. 30 (Northfield, M i n n . :
Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1985, 340 pp.,
hardbound), edited by Odd S. Lovoll and dedicated to the memory
of Peter A. Munch, is devoted primarily to the history of the
Norwegians i n the Pacific Northwest, including Alaska.
* * *
N o r w e g i a n s t o A m e r i c a by E l i n Strøm and Wenche Herwig
(Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1985, 80 pp., softbound) is a popular
and attractively illustrated brief presentation of Norwegian emi­gration
and Norwegians in America. The first part, by E l i n Strøm,
consists of a fictionalized account of a representative emigrant
family who sailed for America in 1891 and eventually settled on
the North Dakota prairie. The second part, by Wenche Hervig, is
a factual survey of Norwegian-American history. The book is
available from Columbia University Press, 562 West 113th Street,
New York, N Y 10025, for $6.50.
* * *
Folke Hedblom discusses Swedish personal names in America
i n " S v e n k a personnamn i A m e r i k a . E n aktuel l forsknings­uppgift,"
in S t u d i a A n t h r o p o n y m i c a S c a n d i n a v i c a , / T i d s k r i f t för
n o r d i s k p e r s o n n a m n s f o r s k n i n g , 2 (1984), 87—105.
* * *
Swedish-American views on the O l d Country are discussed by
Harald Runblom in "Emigranten och fosterlandet. Svensk-amer­ikanernas
b i l d av Sverige," in A t t v a r a svensk, Kungl. Vitterhets,
Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Konferenser, 13 (Stockholm,
1985), 131-47.
* * *
A special bilingual number of B r y g g a n / T h e B r i d g e , published
by the Emigrant Register and Kinship Center in Karlstad, Swe-
185